City of Screams by James Rollins Page A

a Styrofoam cup of water. “We have a chopper full of Rangers on their way to help them.”
    The professor looked like he knew such aid would arrive too late. He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses on his narrow nose and said nothing. When he lifted the cup, his hand trembled so much that water spilled onto the desk. He set the cup back down, his cast clunking against the table.
    Jordan gave him a minute to pull himself together. Listening to his colleagues’ deaths had hit him hard, a natural reaction.
    â€œThat last phrase.” Jordan rewound the recording to that final whispery phrase. “Do you know what language it is?”
    He played it again for Atherton.
    A muscle under the professor’s eye twitched. “It can’t be.”
    He gripped the edge of the table with both hands, as if he expected it to fly away. Whatever it was, it unnerved him more than the screams had.
    â€œCan’t be what?” Jordan prompted.
    â€œBactrian.” The professor whispered the word. His knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the table.
    â€œBactrian?” Jordan had heard of Bactrian camels, but never a Bactrian language. “Professor?”
    â€œBactrian.” The professor stared at the headphones as if they were lying to him. “A lost language of Northern Afghanistan, one of the least known of the Middle Iranian dialects. It hasn’t been spoken since . . . for centuries.”
    Strange.
    So someone had attacked a group of archaeologists—then left a message in an ancient language. Or had the message come from a survivor? Regardless, to Jordan, that didn’t sound like a standard insurgent attack. “Can you tell me what it means?”
    The professor didn’t lift his eyes from the table when he answered. “The girl. It means the girl is ours .”
    Even stranger.
    Jordan shifted in his chair, anxious. Were those final words a threat? Did they indicate that one of the archaeology team—a woman—was still alive, maybe being held hostage or tortured? A few years ago he might have wondered who would do such a thing, but now he knew. When it came to dealing with Taliban forces or the isolated tribesmen, nothing surprised Jordan anymore.
    And that worried him.
    How had a farm boy from Iowa ended up in Afghanistan investigating murders? He knew he still looked the part, with his wheat-blond hair, clear blue eyes, his square-jawed face. No one needed to see the Stars and Stripes sewn onto the shoulder of his fatigues to know he was American. But if you looked closer—at the scars on his body, at what his men called his thousand-yard stare—you’d see another side of him. He wondered how well he would fit in those cornfields of his former home. If he could ever go back.
    â€œHow many women were there at the site?” Jordan asked.
    The door opened and McKay poked his head in, a finger pointed at his wrist.
    Time to go.
    Jordan held up one hand, telling him to wait. “Professor Atherton, how many women were at the site?”
    The professor stared at him a long second before answering. “Three. Charlotte. I mean, Dr. Bernstein, from the University of Chicago; a local woman who cooked for us; and her daughter. A little girl. Perhaps ten?”
    Jordan’s stomach churned, upset at the thought of a little girl caught in what sounded like a massacre. He should have felt outrage, too. He searched for it, but found only disillusionment and resignation.
    Am I that hardened?
    October 23, 4:31 P.M .
    Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan
    J ORDAN STARED OUT the chopper’s window at the bowl-shaped valley below. Framed by snow-dusted mountain ranges to the north and south, the entire valley stretched thirty miles long, an oasis of farmlands and sheep ranches nestled between the tall, stony peaks of the Hindu Kush. Though only a short hop by helicopter over the mountains, the city of Kabul seemed a million miles from this isolated valley.
    They